


tell me how you would touch me

by fav_littleleaf



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Depression, Hurt/Comfort, Other, Phone sex without the sex?, Pining, Post-FRP long distance relationship AU, Touch-Starved, basically it exists in the gray space between sexual and non-sexual, phone cuddles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:28:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26339539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fav_littleleaf/pseuds/fav_littleleaf
Summary: Juno feels Peter’s words more than hears them, lets them burrow under his skin, thinks about how lucky he is that he gets to hear this voice and not some con of one. He pulls his blanket further around him and curls up in Peter Nureyev’s voice — not Rex Glass, not Duke Rose, buthis, all his.If only that were enough.
Relationships: Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel
Comments: 15
Kudos: 98





	tell me how you would touch me

Juno is wrapped up in a cocoon on his bed, comms tossed off somewhere by his elbow. Peter has been talking, telling him stories of his latest heist, but the details get lost in Juno’s head. He feels Peter’s words more than hears them, lets them burrow under his skin, thinks about how lucky he is that he gets to hear this voice and not some con of one. 

He pulls his blanket further around him and curls up in Peter Nureyev’s voice — not Rex Glass, not Duke Rose, but _his_ , all his.

If only that were enough.

“Juno? Are you alright?”

Juno makes a noise that isn't quite agreement. “When are you coming to Mars again?”

“I'll be home soon, love, just a few more months.”

“That's such a long time,” he hears himself complaining, and hates it. He knows this is an important job for Peter, and doesn't want to jeopardize it. He knows he should appreciate how he just called Mars _home_.

“Juno,” Peter says, his voice breathy and high-pitched. “You know how much it breaks my heart that I can't be with you.”

He nods into the pillow, as if Peter could see it, as if he could feel it. But he can't. Juno digs a fingernail into the soft foam of it, wondering if the pillow hurts too. When he lets go it bounces back like nothing happened.

“Darling?”

“Yeah,” he says.

“What’s wrong?”

“Just…. haven’t been touched in a while. Not since you left.” Juno takes a deep breath. “And stream nights with Rita don’t really cut it.”

“You know I can always help with that.” He swears he hears a little of Rex Glass. 

“It’s not like that,” he says quickly. “It’s… different. Sometimes I just want to be held, have that be all.”

“Ah… I understand.” Silence falls between them, a thoughtful one. “Is there any way I can help from far away?”

Juno squeezes his eyes shut and clutches the pillow to his chest. He imagines it's Peter, crushes all the breath out of it, drags his fingers across the folds of what might be Peter's shirt.

“Juno, love —”

“Tell me how you would touch me,” Juno interrupts.

A pause on the other end. “Do you want —”

“No,” he whispers. When he speaks again his voice is softer than he means it, more vulnerable than what Peter thought he meant. “If you were here right now, how would you touch me?”

There's a pause and a rustle of fabric, like Peter is imagining it. His voice is soft now, too. “Are you lying down?”

“I'm lying in bed on my side, holding my pillow. Pretending it's you.”

“I would lie next to you,” Peter says. “Take your face in my hands and trace my thumb across your cheek. Let my fingers graze your neck.”

Juno matches the action with his own hand, his eyes closed. He brushes his thumb against his earlobe, imagines that the warm pressure of the palm against his neck is not his own. He can almost convince himself if he increases the pressure of his hand but keeps the rest of himself soft and light.

“That feels good,” Juno whispers.

“I would kiss you, bite your bottom lip a little, just until you sigh for me…” Peter’s breath catches a little over the comms. “Then I’d take you in my arms, lace my fingers through your hair. I’d hold you so tight you could barely breathe.” 

Juno lets out a breathy sigh, feels the ghost of a tingle on his lips and on his scalp. He nestles further against his pillow, the corner of it pressing against his cheek, his arm curling around it as if it's Peter's body.

“What do you smell like?” Juno murmurs.

“Like freshly washed cotton pajamas.” There’s a smile in Peter’s voice now. “And your favorite cologne. I’d pull you closer to me, press your face into my neck so it’s all you can feel.”

Juno makes a noise that might be a sob, but he chooses to believe it isn’t. He hugs his pillow even tighter against him. The corner of the blanket falls across his cheek.

"Is this okay?"

“More, please. I want it to hurt.”

“Juno —”

“If I let it hurt, then it goes away. Otherwise it just… _festers_ , like… God, I don’t know, something that festers.” He swallows. “It's always there, Peter.”

“Sit up for me,” Peter says. “Lean back against the headboard.”

His tone is different, then; it has the same lilt in it, the same _promise_ that his dirty talk does, but this is more gentle. It makes Juno shiver. He feels safe in it, less alone, even though he is alone.

“I’m sitting up now.” 

“Imagine I'm sitting behind you, with my body pressed up against yours. I'd slide my fingers up and down your arms, lean down to kiss your neck, and whisper in your ear how beautiful you are. Oh, Juno…” he says, like he's singing a lullaby, “Your skin is so beautiful under my mouth.”

Juno whimpers at that. He bites his lip. The words hurt part of him, driving down like spikes in a garden. But another part of him shivers, vibrates with it, the pleasure of this ghost that he doesn’t deserve. 

“I want your mouth on my neck. I want your hands all over my body. Peter, please —”

“I’ve got you, love,” he whispers. “I’m lifting your shirt, trailing my hands across your skin, across your stomach, stroking down your thigh. My mouth is on your throat, biting just a little bit, or maybe a lot, until you’re gasping for me.”

Juno can’t help it anymore. He cries now, but quietly, so Peter doesn’t hear.

The line is silent for a moment. “Is this helping, Juno?”

“Yes.” The prickling in his skin intensifies, begs for Peter, even as part of him shatters. “Please keep going.”

“If this is hurting you —”

“Don't stop, or I will personally come to Icarus and murder you.”

There's a laugh, and he can't tell if it's sad or not. He doesn't think about it. He can't think about it.

“I’m moving around to face you now. Imagine I’m pressing you down onto the bed,” Peter says, and he sounds too in love to be sad. “Unbuttoning your shirt, one by one, pressing a kiss on your skin as I open each of them. First, for your collarbone, then your ribs: left side, and right side.” Peter pauses for a breath between each, letting Juno imagine the touch of his lips against all of him all at once.

Juno runs both his hands across his chest and stomach, craving Peter’s touch in each spot, the wet warmth of his lips and tongue, the cool roughness of his fingers on Juno’s waist. A breathy whine escapes him as Peter continues his list, pausing for a kiss on his stomach, on his hip bone, on the crease of his thigh. Tears are still wet on Juno’s cheeks. Desire crests over him in a wave. It’s not _enough._

“Does that feel good?”

Juno inhales a deep breath. “Yeah,” he says. It aches all over, prickles over his skin; it's repugnant and miraculous all in one holy breath. “I want you. God, I want you.”

 _I know,_ are the words Peter says, but _I want you too_ drips through them. “I'm right here.”

Juno can’t do anything but breathe, caught up in this hell, rioting with the pain of it — with loss, with loneliness, with knowing the words _“I’m right here”_ will never be spoken again: from Diamond and Benten and Mom, and Peter, it feels like sometimes.

“Juno,” Peter prompts softly. “Do you want me to keep going?” 

“No,” Juno whispers. “Just stay right here. Let me hold you on my chest.”

“Alright.”

“Peter… I —” The words die on his lips. He doesn’t have any, not for how this feels.

“I love you, Juno. I'm sorry I can't be there for you in the way you deserve.” There’s a hitch in his breath again, and this time Juno doesn’t have to wonder what it is. “I wish I could be everything for you.”

“You are,” he chokes out. 

“No, I'm not. You deserve to be touched the way you want, you deserve more than a comms call when you're crying —” 

“Stop it. Doing this helps me, okay?”

There’s silence on the line except for Peter’s uneven breaths. 

“You promise?”

“Yeah.”

Peter sighs. “Alright, Juno. I'll take you at your word.”

And he should, because Juno does feel better, like a boil that’s been drained of pus, all hurting and skewering pain until it isn’t anymore. 

“Will you stay the night with me?” 

“Yes, of course.”

“Good,” Juno murmurs, letting the last dregs of it out of him in an exhale, whispering Peter's name on the edge of it. It's not so bad, all things considered.


End file.
